Swamped by huge waves churned up by a hurricane, Carla Armaza desperately swam out to save her pal from being dragged out to sea.

But the force of the surf off Rockaway Beach late Friday afternoon was too strong. She was choking on seawater, barely able to keep herself afloat as exhaustion set it.

Armaza was then plucked from the ocean by lifeguards. Her friend, Tiara Coaxum, 16, disappeared. She was still missing yesterday and presumed drowned.

“She was trying to help her,” Armaza’s mom, Rosa, told The Post yesterday from her home in Jackson Heights, Queens.

“They were swimming and they got swept out. My daughter tried to get to that girl, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t reach her.

“I feel so happy that my daughter’s here, but so bad for the other mother.”

Lifeguards spotted Armaza, 16, in trouble just before 4 p.m. Friday. She was pulled out of the water and taken to Peninsula Hospital.

Coaxum, a high-school basketball star, disappeared under the surging waves. The Coast Guard yesterday downgraded its hunt for her from a rescue attempt to a search.

“I haven’t slept, I haven’t eaten,” Coaxum’s mom, Tikhia Williams, 34, said as she opened her door to the family’s pastor at her Jamaica, Queens, home.

“I have been up all night waiting for my child to come home. I continue to pray and hope that everything is fine.”

The teenagers, who knew each other from Thomas Edison HS in Jamaica, were hanging out with a group of friends on the beach Friday as temperatures soared well into the 90s.

Cops said they were swimming in rough seas with three-foot waves when lifeguards realized they were in trouble.

Lifeguards yesterday said the notoriously dangerous waters off the Rockaways had been made even more deadly by distant Hurricane Bertha, which had whipped up water with 75 mph winds as it crossed the open Atlantic.

The city Parks Department said the beach was operating as normal yesterday.

But police divers, Jet-Skis and a helicopter that joined the Coast Guard in the search reminded sunbathers of the danger. The search was suspended at about 4 p.m.

Rockaway Beach’s riptides are the city’s deadliest. A Post investigation conducted last year found at least nine people had been killed there since 1999, compared to 21 at the city’s other 19 beaches combined.

If Coaxum has drowned, she would be the first city victim since beaches opened in May.

Saba Nakhai, 24, of Jamaica, who was sunbathing at Rockaway yesterday, said: “I come here every weekend, but I never go in the water. It’s scary, way too scary.”

James Mack, 46, a surfer who lives nearby, added: “There are a lot of drop-offs and a lot of currents out here. If you don’t know the ocean, you can be in a lot of trouble.”

Williams said she was clinging to hope that her daughter was mistakenly identified as the person swept out to sea.